


"Drowning"

by MrsKohakuSato



Category: Gargoyles (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Demona Centric, Demona Redemption, Established Relationship, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Introspection, Mutilation, Other, Post-Canon, References to Depression, Self-Mutilation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:48:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28874829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsKohakuSato/pseuds/MrsKohakuSato
Summary: She’s lived so long, through so many centuries, through so many eras-alone and forgotten. She’s more a mirage of something that once was. Time had changed her, chipped away at everything she was and is so much, she can barely recall who she was.Demona.A woman without a name given a name.Perhaps that’s where the metamorphosis had begun-Demona.Demona the Immortal.Demona the Betrayer.Demona the-Who was she-before she had become Demona?
Relationships: Demona (Gargoyles)/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 5





	"Drowning"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s lived so long, through some many centuries, through so many eras-alone and forgotten. She’s more a mirage of something that once was. Time had changed her, chip away at everything she was and is so much, she can barely recall who she was. 
> 
> Demona. 
> 
> A woman without a name given a name. 
> 
> Perhaps that’s where the metamorphosis had begun-
> 
> Demona. 
> 
> Demona the Immortal. 
> 
> Demona the Betrayer. 
> 
> Demona the- 
> 
> Who was she-before she had become Demona?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note/Context: 
> 
> Ishtar: A powerful sorceress and Demona’s new mate. She’s much like Demona in the fact that she is immortal, born in ancient Babylon where she had ended up being worshipped as a goddess because she was not human, she was gargoyle. The humans thought her a god from the heavens and treated her like such until she was betrayed and denounced and since then she ended up wandering around ancient Mesopotamia and the Middle East for centuries. 
> 
> *This fic is a major Canon Divergence*

** “Time is Like a River” **

[]

Time is such an abstract concept, the way the pendulum swings, the way it flows like a river with no beginning and no end, there is no middle and there is no pause, it goes on and on no matter how many kingdoms bloom and die and the cycle repeats itself. 

Time is cyclic, or perhaps, it is more like a domino effect, one thing affecting another and affecting another-

Time is a concept obsolete to her. 

She’s lived so long, through so many centuries, through so many eras-alone and forgotten. She’s more a mirage of something that once was. Time had changed her, chipped away at everything she was and is so much, she can barely recall who she was. 

_Demona._

A woman without a name given a name. 

Perhaps that’s where the metamorphosis had begun-

_Demona._

_Demona the Immortal._

_Demona the Betrayer._

_Demona the-_

Who was she-before she had become Demona?

_‘You said that the centuries have changed me. They’ve changed you too. You’ve become hard, unforgiving, you are not as I remember you.’_

Her brow furrowed at the memory, it-his words hissed in her ear, poisonous, toxic. Her teeth found purchase at her bottom lip. If it were her fangs, they’d long torn her flesh. 

Goliath.

_'Oh, her dear poor, naive FOOLISH Goliath.'_

His words were like teeth. He knew how to use them, how to speak, how to sway, not so much in a manipulative manner, but he was eloquent, by far the most well-spoken out of their clan because he spent so much of his youth with his nose stuck in books. He had a thirst for knowledge that could not be quenched by oral fables passed on by their elders. He always needed to know more. 

Once upon a time when she had been young and stupid, she found it endearing, soothing, he knew just what to say to calm her, to smooth over her anger. Now it simply filled her with bitterness, filled her with hate that he’d use his words against her of all people. 

But that was over, but a chapter in her life not fully closed. 

_Because- what are we?_ They're no longer lovers-they're not even friends, nor are they truly enemies. But they can never be what they were before. Time had broken that.

_'You had broken that.'_

_‘You said that the centuries have changed me. They’ve changed you too. You’ve become hard, unforgiving, you are not as I remember you.’_

Demona refilled her glass and threw it back to feel it burn. She cannot die, immortality had made her for the most part impervious, indestructible, but that did not shield her from feeling, from pain, her body will mend and fix but she’ll feel the agony of every bone snapping back in place. She however was not sure if that was a blessing or a curse. While time was no more than white noise in her ear, she still felt the weight of it hanging heavily along her shoulders. 

_'Time had broken them. Misunderstanding had broken them.'_

_'Are you that blind!? Or can you not look truth truly in the eyes? You've gotten this far, what's another step?'_

_-Truth-_

Time was cruel; though it cannot be seen, it could inflict such lethal wounds. Perhaps, time itself was a curse in its own way. It took and it took, selfish, greedy, avaricious without ever giving anything back. But that did not make it evil, it cannot be, no, time simply was and nothing more. It has no consciousness, it has no moral compass, or values or beliefs, it cannot think or reason or ponder. Time just is. 

_'Time is truth then? Or is time an aspect of truth? Or is Time and Truth altogether contrasting entities?_ '

_-What is Truth?-_

_-What is Time?-_

_'Ugh! All this thinking is giving me a migraine!'_ Demona fills her glass again, but takes her time to sip it, to taste it both bitter and sweet and burning. 

_'I'm starting to sound insane.'_

_'Tell me something new'_

_Demona frowned 'I am not mad'_

_'You're not? Could've fooled me'_

_'Then their descendants shall pay! I will have blood for blood!'_ Her tongue slides over teeth where her fangs should be.

"Habib albi?"

Demona sighs, chugging back her glass before she pours herself more. She better finish quickly before her precious bottle of booze is taken. The door to her office creaks open. She doesn't have to look up to see the displeasure in Ishtar’s face, she can feel the disdainful frown practically branding her skin.

"Drinking so early?" she clicked her tongue, always in the way she found patronizing. Only then did she turn her gaze up to glare at her over the rim of her glass.

"And?" 

"It is barely morning. The sun has yet to kiss the earth and here you are tossing back liquor like a sailor at sea" she clicked her tongue again. 

Demona laughed "I can drink more than any sea captain" all the introspection, or perhaps all the booze settling in her stomach embolden her "and who are you, _mo ghràdh_ " her tongue rolls with little effort, placing her chin in the palm of her hand, grinning "the vengeful siren come to shipwreck me upon the shore?" 

"That is what I fear. It's an awful habit and I do not wish to kiss you with hard liquor on your tongue" 

"You wound me, _mo ghràdh"_

"Good then."

"So cruel"

"Be lucky that is all I do. I could take a spear upon your chest and run you threw" Ishtar snatched away her booze for the rest of the day "you can have this back later" 

_'Lucky she stored away a secret stash Ishtar has yet to find.'_

_'Don't push your luck'_

"How fun" she spoke, flat.

"Perhaps, but I can attest it was not fun for those who fell beneath the weight of my killing hand." 

"I wish I was there to see." 

"You would not." Her voice grew quiet "I was a far different person than. Blood and vengeance was all that I thought of. I hardly remember most of it" 

"Oh, come off that, please.” Demona moved to lean back in her chair “Look at who you're talking to. We're both bloodied"

"Sinned and cursed yes" there's a faraway look in her eye "however I'm glad we met here, during this time. I would have killed you then" 

"Is that so?" Demona folded her arms across chest with a raised brow.

"I had a short fuse, and you have a short tongue. Our meeting would have ended in blood" Demona scoffed. It is hardly much of an insult; Ishtar was often a begetter of brutal honesty. Most times anyways.

"Who knows it probably happened already. In some other time, some other world, or dimension I should say" 

"I don't like to ponder about that, but yes, reality is infinite. So is time-flowing like a river between the past, present and future. But I did not come here to dwell upon such things. You have work. I have work" 

Demona sniffed, disdainfully "Meetings are dull. Humans always find a need to overcomplicate everything" 

"Well, yes, but Xanatos has promised something exciting" 

"To himself maybe." She muttered, bemoaning into her desk, hoping to become one with the furniture "The man is always so fickle with his interests. First, it's throwing a castle on top of a skyscraper. Bringing the dead back to life, clones and such nonsense. Though to be fair I enabled much of the nonsense to begin with. Though I'd hate to see what he comes up with next, at this point I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to construct a theme park in Goliath's image" 

It was a ridiculous image to dwell on. However, she did not put it past the fool, he had such a strange fascination towards her former mate. The machines-Thailong. So, odd, her brow wrinkled. Demona wouldn't be shocked if Xanatos had tried to court him. 

Then Goliath would've snapped his spine into halves for the mere audacity of such a gesture. They were no longer enemies but that did not mean he had to like the man. 

Or Elisa might wield her gun and shoot him. Gargoyles were possessive of their mates; she did not doubt that the human might be affected because of their bonding. 

Now that'd be a show she'd like to see. Demona did not like Elisa, for a multitude of reasons, being as she saw the woman as nothing more than a usurper. Filling into her former spot as Matriarch of her clan like she had a right too, but she can at least admit that the woman was witty. 

Feisty-

_'And hard to kill while we're at it'_

"It is a funny sight to consider. But I doubt that'll go over so well." Ishtar brushed some of her dark hair, long, long dark hair over her shoulder. It rippled and swayed and shined. All Demona wanted to do was run her fingers through it. It was such a stark contrast to Goliath's heavy, thick tresses. His hair was coarse, but soft. Her fingertips can remember the feel of it, though she is no longer filled with any desire to ever do such an intimate thing with him ever again. 

_-Bitter remembrance-_

_'And you have only yourself to thank for that, beautiful'_

Whereas Goliath was soft, Ishtar's was smooth like silk, shifting through the space of her talons like butter. 

"Though, I wonder if he'd be opened to my ideas about my rehabilitation home for chinchillas! What do you think!? It'd be lovely!" The heavy sorrow that she wore like a second skin left, her smile nearly blinded her. So bright "oh, and I zoo, a petting zoo for them would be-" 

Demona truly did love Ishtar, she truly, truly did, but her ongoing obsession with those tiny evil creatures might be her undoing.

"I think you have enough of those creatures"

She laughed clasping her hands together “oh, no! There can never not be enough! They're cute little faces could melt the devil's heart" Demona felt her mood sour. All she can think of, when Ishtar gushed about those overgrown rodents was how they like to bite her. They wanted her blood, bloody little demons from hell.

“You invest far too much of your time into those creatures” 

“You don’t like them because they don’t like you.” 

“The little demon bit me!” 

“You made him nervous” 

Demona scoffed, rolling her eyes before raising from her desk “Never the matter, we have work to do” 

An arched brow and jutted hip “do we now? I thought you found meetings dull? Why the hurry all a sudden?” 

“Yes, well it’s either that or listening you prattle on and on about your little minions from hell.” 

“They’d like you better if you didn’t sneer at them so much,”

“They’re evil.” 

“They’re adorable.” 

“That’s a matter of an opinion.” 

Ishtar laughs. It’s a nice sound to her ears.

_‘Hopefully you won’t destroy this new life of yours too soon.’_

_‘I won’t.’_

_‘So much conviction! Are you sure of that?’_

_‘I am.’_

_‘Are you sure?’_

Demona ignored the little voice in her head. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank You For Reading!


End file.
